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Updated: Flyers in the Ointment

County Councilor David Madore lost control of the County Council, formerly known as the County Commission, once the home rule charter was implemented and it changed from three people to five people.

He ran for the position of chair and lost that election, causing him to launch a write-in campaign that Rep. Liz Pike (R 17) unwisely allowed her name to be attached to. He lost that election too.

It is now easily seen that voters are displeased with him, many regretting they even voted for him back in 2012.

Even though he frequently says he will abide by the will of the people, we have also seen that it is only some of the people he is willing to abide by their will, part and parcel of why he continues to lose elections.

But for some reason, even seeing extreme displeasure with him from county citizens, he is desperate to remain sitting on the council and even hopes to drag another one of his hand-picked chosen ones to the council and sit next to him.

The fringe hotheads now in control of the Clark County Republican party that lead what few support he has left share in that desperation and caused to commit a grave blunder recently in mailing out flyers that not only violate their party by-laws, but backfire on them.

Both flyers are duplicates essentially targeting two Republican candidates, John Blom, running against Madore and Jennifer McDaniel vying for the set Councilor Tom Mielke will vacate when he retires at the end of this year.

Section 2. “In a primary election the CCRP shall only take a ‘No Position’ position on races contested by more than one Republican.” (Emphasis added)

It couldn’t be any clearer that the flyers sent from the Clark County Republican Party take a position for one Republican, David Madore and long ago Oregon legislator Eileen Quiring over John Blom and sitting Washougal city councilor, Jennifer McDaniel.

Moving on to the flyers themselves, we see that both ask, “Why would Liberal Democrats endorse John Blom or Jennifer McDaniel?” respectively.

The why is actually pretty simple.

It is because both John and Jennifer are willing to treat Liberal Democrats as equal citizens in Clark County and will respect them and their views as well as the voices of all citizens, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, all of us.

Clark County is a very diverse community with citizen covering all viewpoints, not just a singular partisan view of either party.

Madore, and I suspect his hand chosen preferred candidate Eileen Quiring, clearly show that they are not interested in any broad bipartisan support, desiring only support from the far right fringe that has deeply divided our county.

That leads me to believe that it only that group they will listen to or support, not the rest of the county citizens. That is seen in the flyers where for Madore it says, “David Madore’s endorsement’s and volunteers include vast numbers of grassroots conservative Republicans.”

Likewise, in Quiring’s flyer it says, “Eileen Quiring chose as her campaign slogan ‘A Conservative We Can Trust,’ and most of her donations come from grassroots Republican activists.”

What about the rest of the county? Do only “grassroots Republican activists” matter to these two?

Third and last, David Madore defeated incumbent Marc Boldt in the 2012 election largely due to an unprecedented undervote exceeding 35,000 voters in Clark County. We have assumed the majority of that undervote were Democrats that vote due to the letter ‘D’ behind the name and that would not vote for either since both ran with an ‘R’ behind their names.

Sadly, too many from both sides end up blindly voting in that manner.

These flyers could entice those voters that don’t take the time to research candidates and tend to blindly vote party line that to cast their votes for John and Jennifer, seeing that they truly do have bipartisan support and, if the party they dislike also dislike them, they must be good for the county.

Needless to say, the flyers are huge blunder.

As I talk to people from across the county, people from all perspectives, they are growing sick and tired of the bickering, the mudslinging, the divisiveness and needless arguing week after week.

I am reminded from History class how our founding fathers argued with each other, very heated arguments at times. But, they overcame their differing views and met towards the center and gave us a country and constitution guaranteeing citizens unprecedented freedoms and liberty.

We have gotten away from that in governing and we need look no further than David Madore and his facebook “newspaper” to see that according to him, he and he alone knows what is best for all 450,000 residents of Clark County.

And he wants Eileen Quiring alongside of him to continue with the same divisive and argumentative attitude we have seen this year.

We need Councilors sitting on the County Council that honor and respect everybody, not just a dwindling number of Madore groupies flocking around him.

8 Comments to “Updated: Flyers in the Ointment”

IF you want to take a look, Eleene (sorry I forget the right spelling) is a sitting clark county planning commission. That might be just the start. I doubt anyone wants to be a clark county commissioner with David playing games. 😛

Yes, I know she is on the planning commission, but her legislative experience ended back around 2002 or 2003 in Oregon when she was voted out.

Her time there seems marked by controversial positions that seemed to hurt the very people she said she was helping at times.

I don’t when she divorced and took back the name Quiring, but a search of Eileen Qutub brought up a few things of interest from years before she ran for the 49th Senate in 2012.

She also posted a different flyer on her facebook page with questionable claims against Jennifer and when confronted with evidence of inaccuracies and links back to older articles, instead of discussing them she merely followed Madore’s example of delete and block the person questioning her.

While your comments about the improper aspects of the flyers is worth considering, perhaps you might wish to look at the “Political Candidate Evaluation Matrix” that ClarkCounty.info has developed. Perhaps you’d like to offer your own “matrix” for comparison? FWIW, I’m in District 2, so I only have academic interest in the contests in districts 3 and 4.

As for being open to negotiation and compromise with the opposition party, it does not seem as if the current 3-member majority on the council is doing any negotiation and compromise with the now 2-vote minority.

The real question that needs to be asked is: Which candidates desire less government interference in our lives? And, Which candidates are dedicated to reduce the cost of local government.

The primary activity of government at all levels appears to be to squander taxpayer dollars. Any representatives that work to reduce the impact of government waste should be embraced, even if they are somewhat abrasive. (Note: I do not agree with Madore on every policy that he’s been behind… but on the whole, he has (attempted) to adopt more acceptable policies than unacceptable ones. The initial actions of the “new” council in their first days of operation under the charter appeared to be only to “undo” many of Madore’s accomplishments, regardless of the merit of those actions or policies. That just seems to be sour grapes-style partisan politics rather than careful evaluation of the public’s needs or desires.

I have the same concerns that Friend expressed. When have the liberals in the county, state, or federal government ever shown any effort at bipartisanship when they are in control? When not in control, they attempt to co-opt good-willed Republicans by appealing to their sense of duty to country and to the ‘spirit of comity’. Those Republicans get stabbed in the back every time. I think I’d prefer an abrasive person like Madore who won’t ‘go along to get along’ to those who will go along to get along.

Lew, you’ve posted story after story, example after example, in this blog about that very thing. What makes this different other than your antipathy towards Madore?

The actions from Madore and the hotheads ruling the CCGOP directly against me has caused me to step back and take a more critical look at things.

Yes, Liberals have been unwilling to give and so has the GOP, which brought us to gridlock.

But, Madore is not permitted to write his own rules and disparage those that disagree with him, as he has done. Nor is the party leaders.

What good are bylaws if they are ignored on whim, simply because you don’t like the person?

Just seen last night, Christian Berrigan mailed out a letter to households in Carolyn Crain’s precinct as “Clark County Republican Party State Committeeman” uring people to vote for her opponent for PCO. The prty bylaws state they take no position when two Republicans are in a contested race.

As in the flyers, they are in violation of their bylaws.

Are they to be permitted to just act as they please, writing rules as they go?

At one time or another I have met all of these people the flyers mention and what is being said against McDaniel and Blom just isn’t true.

Y’all should really be concerned that the party has decided to stoop to such levels to keep someone on a council and still in a minority position.

Madore has lied outright about Julie Olson and Jeanne Stewart on his facebook page and whether or not I agree with a particular action they have taken, I don’t feel the need to outright lie.